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SEO Checklist for Your Home Care Firm

Today's article is by Jason Chagnon from Providentia Marketing. Jason and Providentia's goals are to help to drive client referrals and attract caregivers to your agency. In today's blog, he offers an introduction on how to improve your SEO, your website performance, and ultimately, how to improve your marketing. Enjoy his post (below) and feel free to leave a comment!

For most people, driving in a car feels much safer than flying in an airplane. We dictate our future when we hold the steering wheel. We decide our direction, and we determine whether we reach our destination or not. Statistically, flying is much safer than driving, but most of us worry a lot more when we are on an airplane. We hate to give up control – it makes us uncomfortable when we’re 30,000 feet above the ground. Control means security.

In SEO, search engines are your airplanes, and Google is your pilot. There may be 100 people onboard an aircraft thinking they’re headed to Miami. But if the pilot says he wants to go to Los Angeles, guess where you’re going? Los Angeles!

Everything Google does is in its own self-interest. Google is not a public service. They are a business looking to drive the bottom line. Profit potential drives their algorithmic changes. They don’t owe webmasters anything. However, if we can build a website that provides a remarkable user experience and answers a query, then Google will reward you with targeted visitors. They want people to continue using Google as their preferred search engine, so delivering high-quality results should be a priority.

Remember, Google is not a person. It’s a machine that was programmed by people. Anytime there’s an algorithm in place, there’s a way to manipulate the algorithm. Clients and their families rely on search engines for answers to their questions, so you need to do everything you can to get in front of users who do not yet know who you are.

In our next series of posts, we’ll present Providentia Marketing’s 2017 SEO checklist to help your home care business get a little more control over the pilot.

Part 1: Is your website built for mobile?

The world has made a rapid shift from desktops and laptops to cell phones and tablets. It’s more important than ever to make sure your website looks great on a small screen and loads fast. Mobile-friendly is the name of the game. Here’s what you need to implement to “future proof” your website:

Responsive Website Design

Responsive website design has become the barometer by which all mobile sites are judged. In the past, webmasters had to build two separate websites: one for desktop users and one for mobile users. Now, responsive design allows the on-page elements to adjust to the user’s screen automatically. This is ideal for user experience and is Google’s preferred website design.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

AMP is a new initiative by Google to bring the web to mobile users at lightning speed. Since Google has made their shift to the mobile first index, websites that take advantage of accelerated mobile pages have enjoyed a slight boost in rankings. Much like SSL, this advantage is likely to dissipate over time as more users adopt AMP technology. With that said, you don’t want to be the only website without AMP pages a year from now!

Up Next: Is Your Website Fast? Secure? Does it deliver a Great UX?

In my next post, I’ll review three more factors which dramatically impact your staffing website’s SEO.

This article, originally titled, SEO IN 2017: A CHECKLIST FOR YOUR HOME CARE FIRM (PART 1 OF 3), first appeared in the Providentia Marketing blog.

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One of Ankota's recent whitepapers, entitled "Blueprint for the Next Generation of Homecare at Home" is available for download. Please click the link or the picture below to download. If you're interested in scheduling an online demo of our home care or care transitions software solutions, just click this button:

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital, focusing on efficiency and care coordination. Ankota's primary focus is on Care Transitions for Readmission avoidance and on management of Private Duty non-medical home care. To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact us.